CBI files corruption case against its former director Ranjit Sinha

NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday filed a case against its former director Ranjit Sinha under the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The former CBI chief is accused of "scuttling" and "influencing" probe into the coal block allocation cases by meeting the accused persons.

Ranjit Sinha is the second CBI director to be probed by agency itself after AP Singh, who was booked by the agency for corruption charges along with meat exporter Moin Qureshi.

CBI filed an FIR against Ranjit Sinha on Monday under sections - 13 (2), which deals with "criminal misconduct" and section 13 (1) (d), pertaining to abusing official position while holding a public office and indulging in corruption, of the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act.

If convicted, former anti-corruption probe agency's chief - Ranjit Sinha may face maximum seven years imprisonment in the case.

CBI FIR comes three months after the Supreme Court asked the agency to probe Ranjit Sinha's role.

A Special Investigation Team was formed to conduct investigation into the abuse of authority prima facie committed by Sinha with a view "to scuttle enquiries, investigations and prosecutions being carried out by the CBI in the coal block allocation cases", said the CBI FIR.

A bench of Justices Madan B Lokur, Kurian Joseph and AK Sikri directed present CBI chief Alok Verma to set up a three members special investigation team to investigation Sinha.

Sinha had faced the ignominy of being restrained from handling the 2G and coal scam cases.

During his two years' tenure, from 2012 to 2014, CBI was also called a "caged parrot" by the apex court.

The alleged irregularities in the coal scam, also popularly called "Coalgate", came to the light when a visitors' diary revealed that Sinha had "privately" met some of the highprofile accused at his official residence several times.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan had sought a probe against Sinha.